Project day

We had decided not to travel today because of a festival la serenata in Cafayate so I took advantage of this down day to take care of small projects. I did some laundry to take advantage of the heat.

I then took off one of the side window shade/screens to restring the mosquito netting, similar to what I did in Colombia when we were stuck in the blockade, but a different window.

Then I removed the rear window shade to place bigger screws in because they were starting to loosen their grip. Then I decided to tackle putting on a new belt on the second alternator. This involved driving on our traction boards because since having our 3 inch lift removed the jack in brought is too tall.

I jacked up the RV and crawled underneath and unbolted the skid plate.

The belt had started splitting and lost two of the ribs out of six.

I used the belt tensioner tool to remove the belt and tried to put the new one on but the soft aluminum on the tensioner was starting to wear off. I did some research on the Facebook group for the RV and following another user's recommendation I used a ratchet strap to release the tension to the maximum and was able to slip on the belt.

Getting the skidplate back on took a bit more effort because at some point the mechanics lost some bolts and so I had to Jerry rig it. This all took about two hours in the 90 F heat. After all this I went swimming with the kids. 

Christine spent the day homeschooling the kids and the kids swam during breaks. 

Marcus and his wife left for Cafayate in the afternoon and we wished them well. They said they would send us recommendations for Brazil. 

The kids took turns jumping off my shoulders. The Swiss couple in the Defender kept to themselves in the shade after doing laundry. A Ukrainian man was staying in a house in the back and he and a couple other folks hung out by the pool. Later, the owner asked us to pay them because the owner was still in Cafayate. 

When the sun went down the weather cooled and we packed up our stuff and went in as the bugs started biting. 

We ate more of Ellie's cake for dinner. It is very rich. A good day for projects and homeschool.